Paris-based fintech infrastructure platform Kulipa has raised a $6.2 million seed round to expand its stablecoin-native card issuing network across Europe, Latin America, and Africa. The seed funding was co-led by Flutterwave’s backer Flourish Ventures as well as 1kx, with participation from White Star Capital and Fabric Ventures. The fresh capital brings Kulipa’s total funding to $9.2 million and will be directed toward scaling its regulated issuing capabilities, notably bridging onchain settlement with established real-world payment networks like Visa and Mastercard.
The Infrastructure Gap in Stablecoin Payments
While stablecoins now settle over $300 billion daily onchain, their utility in day-to-day consumer and B2B spending remains limited. African markets, driven heavily by Nigeria, have seen an acceleration in stablecoin adoption for cross-border settlements and hedging against currency devaluation. Between mid-2024 and mid-2025, Sub-Saharan Africa moved over $200 billion in onchain value, with stablecoins representing 43% of that activity.
Despite this volume, the architecture connecting decentralized stablecoin balances with regulated, traditional card networks is highly fragmented. Fintechs operating in this space often rely on capital-intensive prefunded structures and hold regionally limited licenses, constraining scalability.
To address this, Kulipa provides a stablecoin-native issuing infrastructure that allows fintechs to launch payment programs funded directly from stablecoin balances. Key features of the platform include:
- Capital Efficiency: Reduces reliance on collateral-heavy prefunding by verifying balances and triggering settlements onchain.
- Global Acceptance: Issues white-labelled payment cards usable wherever major networks are accepted, eliminating the need for users to manually off-ramp to fiat.
- Liability Coverage: Assumes fraud liability on issued programs to remove operational burdens from fintech partners.
- Broad Use Cases: Supports digital banking, cross-border payments, payroll, and spend management platforms.
Growth and Strategic Partnerships
Kulipa operates a local-first regulatory model with coverage across the European Union, Argentina, and Nigeria, while U.S. expansion is currently underway through BIN sponsorship.
Since launching its infrastructure in February 2025, the company reports issuing over 120,000 cards and securing 20 enterprise customers, achieving 70% month-over-month growth in transaction volume. Its client roster currently includes nSave, Solflare, Ready, and Nigerian fintech unicorn Flutterwave.
“Partnering with Kulipa allows us to extend stablecoin value into globally accepted payments in a compliant, scalable way,” said Olugbenga Agboola, Founder and CEO of Flutterwave. He noted that as stablecoins become a practical settlement option, businesses require the infrastructure to turn those digital balances into real-world spending capacity.
Axel Cateland, Founder and CEO of Kulipa — who previously led global Apple Pay and Google Pay deployments at Mastercard — stated that card issuance remains the critical bridge between onchain balances and real-world utility.
Broader African Stablecoin Investment Trends
Kulipa’s funding aligns with a wider influx of venture capital into stablecoin infrastructure targeting emerging markets, particularly across Africa. Investors are shifting focus from speculative crypto trading toward practical B2B infrastructure and decentralized dollar access.
Other notable stablecoin-focused startups operating in Africa that have recently secured backing include:
- Ezeebit: The South African crypto payment startup raised $2.05 million (R35 million) in a seed round led by Founder Collective and Raba Partnership in December 2025. Ezeebit provides merchants with infrastructure to accept crypto payments, offering instant stablecoin settlement and next-day local fiat payouts. The capital is funding its expansion into Kenya and Nigeria.
- HoneyCoin: Nairobi-based fintech HoneyCoin raised $4.9 million in seed funding last August, led by Flourish Ventures, to expand its stablecoin-powered payment orchestration platform across Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The company, which provides instant cross-border payments for businesses and consumers, plans to use the funds to scale operations and strengthen its “operating system for money”.
As regulatory clarity improves across the continent — highlighted by Nigeria’s Accelerated Regulation Incubation Program (ARIP) and Kenya’s Virtual Asset Service Providers Act — capital is increasingly flowing toward companies building the connective tissue between decentralized finance and traditional banking systems.
